


Kiss The Boys And Make Them Cry

by Netgirl_y2k



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Future Fic, Gen, Marriage of Convenience, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-17
Updated: 2014-03-17
Packaged: 2018-01-16 02:54:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1329205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Netgirl_y2k/pseuds/Netgirl_y2k
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dany is not convinced that Jon is Rhaegar's son, and she does not believe that Aegon isn't an impostor, but she marries them both to keep the peace.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kiss The Boys And Make Them Cry

The third wedding of Daenerys Targaryen, where she took Aegon Targaryen and Jon Snow to husband, took place in King's Landing, in the Great Sept of her ancestor, Baelor the Blessed.

Of the three of them, only Aegon had been raised to the Faith of the Seven. Jon Snow followed the Old Gods of the North, and R'hllor to whom he owed his life. Dany herself would be hesitant to dismiss the words of a Red Priest or Priestess, and she believed in the Great Stallion in so much as she believed her Sun-and-Stars was with him. This heresy hadn't stopped the new High Septon, useful hypocrite that he was, from marrying the queen in the light of the Seven.

Jon Snow wore black, as was his wont. Aegon wore gilded armour of red and black with rubies studded into the breastplate... not unlike Rhaegar's, the smallfolk could be heard to whisper.

Dany wore her crown and a gown of pale silver in the Pentoshi style. She well remembered the impracticality of the Ghiscari tokar; she was no longer queen of the rabbits, she had no need of her floppy ears. And unlike Aegon she felt no need to drape herself in the Targaryen colours, and etch dragons onto everything she touched. _She was the last dragon,_ she had brought fire and blood to Westeros. She had burned the Wall to the ground, and the White Walkers and their master with it. Anyone who doubted that she was the rightful queen was free to take the matter up with Drogon.

The queen wore no maiden's cloak - she had been wed twice already - and neither husband wrapped her in his cloak of protection. It would have been farcical with Drogon perched on the roof of the Great Sept, and the cries of her other dragons ringing out over the city.

There were those in King's Landing who would say that this wedding was a farce, that it made a mockery of marriage, and truly Dany did not know that she disagreed with them. But when the kisses were exchanged - a scrape of Jon Snow's beard against Dany's cheek, followed by a possessive, claiming kiss from Aegon, which ended when Dany bit his lower lip hard enough to taste blood - and the High Septon declared them _"one flesh, one heart, one soul"_ the smallfolk cheered and threw flowers at their feet.

*

Jon Snow sat sullenly through his own wedding feast - pining for the North and his fallen Wall, Dany thought unkindly - his direwolf at his feet. 

Ghost did not care for Dany, and he did not care for her dragons. He had snarled and snapped at Viserion more than once; and impressive as the direwolf had been in the frozen north, walking the Wall with Jon Snow and ripping the throats from wights, he would have made a scant mouthful for even the least of Dany's dragons. Jon had not liked her dragons even before they almost made a meal of his wolf, and they in turn did not like him.

Aegon sat jesting and laughing with knights and lords from Dorne and the Crownlands, many of who were unknown to Dany.

With a twitch of her hand the queen summoned Ser Barristan, and the old knight appeared at her shoulder looking thinner than Dany would have liked. He had never completely recovered from the wound he'd received at the Wall, and the infection which had followed it. His position on her Queensguard was now entirely honorary; but he was still her Hand, and she trusted his advice as she could no longer trust his sword arm. 

"Who are those men with Prince Aegon, Ser Barristan?" 

"I can find out for you, Your Grace."

"Do so... but do it quietly."

Dany would hardly be the first wife in history to harbour suspicions towards her husband, and she told herself that after Hizdahr zo Loraq it was only right that she be cautious. 

Her incipient headache was not helped by a drunken Tyrell lordling lurching to his feet and calling for the bedding. The call was echoed throughout the hall. Jon Snow scowled and slouched down in his chair as though people might forget that he was there; his scowl turned to a blush when he noticed Jhiqui heading purposefully towards him. Even little Missandei looked as though she might like to follow the Dothraki girl.

Aegon stood - he is fair enough to look upon, Dany conceded - his voice adding to the ribald jokes that were already filling the air. Not a few maidens were eyeing him appreciatively and giggling; Arianne Martell regarded him with hooded eyes.

The Tyrell who had called for the bedding was making for the queen. Dany was suddenly very aware of Jorah Mormont, who had always been jealously minded about her, of Grey Worm, sworn to protect her, and Aggo, still blood of her blood after all this time. She was convinced that should this drunken Tyrell or any of his ilk lay hands on her then blood would be spilled.

Dany found herself thinking of Dothraki weddings, where any fewer than three deaths were seen as dull, and an ill-omen for the marriage. But she was no longer the terrified girl who Viserys had sold to Khal Drogo, and she was no longer the Queen of Meereen, who had gone along with local customs that she despised in order to keep the peace, losing more and more of her identity and purpose as she did so.

"There will be no bedding," she said. Dany wasn't sure that she had managed to make herself heard, but then Grey Worm and his small band of Unsullied standing guard around their queen slammed their spears against in the ground for silence, and Dany repeated, "There will be _no_ bedding."

The queen stood, Missandei and her guards falling in around her as she left the great hall. She didn't wait to see if either of her husbands would follow.

* 

Dany did not desire either Aegon or Jon, but she was having trouble finding sleep, and there was undoubtedly something tragic about being alone on the night of your wedding. She had even bedded Hizdahr zo Loraq on the night of that disaster.

She considered summoning Irri to her bedchamber, but she quickly dismissed that idea and asked for Missandei instead. 

"Sing me a song of the Children of the Forest," Dany told the little scribe, closing her eyes and willing sleep to take her.

In the north Missandei had spent time with Jon Snow's crippled brother, learning of the Children of the Forest, and what she could of their tongue. Dany could understand very little of it, and in truth the language was so ancient and complicated that even Missandei had trouble with it. But it soothed Dany when Missandei sang the Children's songs to her, even though neither of them truly understood the words.

As she floated on the surface of slumber Dany found her thoughts drifting back to the wedding feast, to Jon Snow with his direwolf at his feet.

Her dragons did not like Ghost, they did not like Jon Snow. They did not like Aegon either, come to think of it. 

"What was that, Your Grace?" Missandei asked.

"The dragon has three heads," Dany murmured into her pillows as sleep claimed her at last.

*

Dany's husbands never visited her bedchamber. She went to them when she could feel the court gossip - about the lack of an heir, about the queen's farce of a marriage - weighing her down.

*

If Dany and Jon were compatible in any way - and at the Wall they had worked well enough together, well enough to ensure the safety of the realm, at least - it was not in the bedchamber. 

Jon Snow bedded his wife as though he was performing a duty, and if it was not an especially unpleasant duty, nor was it one that he undertook with great enthusiasm.

Dany did not help matters; she lay still and disinterested, and thought that being bedded by Jon Snow was not unlike being bedded by a statue. In the bedchamber Hizdahr zo Loraq had reminded her of a dying fish, and being fucked by Daario Naharis had been... 

No, best not to think of Daario, the memory of his betrayal would only infuriate her and make her blood boil in her veins-- although that, at least, might increase her interest in current proceedings. 

She looked up at Jon Snow's face as he thrust between her thighs: his bearded, unsmiling, northern face. Dany had never known her brother Rhaegar, and all likenesses of him had been destroyed by Robert the Usurper... but Dany could see nothing but the north in Jon Snow's features.

Of course, that meant little and less; those who remember have told her that her niece, Princess Rhaenys, was Elia Martell in miniature.

It took Jon a long time to spill his seed inside her. For all that he was not what Dany desired, it did not escape her notice that he was patient and gentle. He would have been a good husband to some other wife, she thought, a good lover to some other woman.

He rolled away from her as soon as he'd finished, rising and donning breeches and a tunic. He would have donned a black cloak too, Dany thought, had there been one to hand.

He grieved for his Wall, yes, and for the brotherhood that no longer existed. But it was not only that-- "You would have preferred Stannis," said Dany.

"To take to wife?" Jon Snow's mouth curved into a smile. Rare as it was, he had a nice smile.

"To take the Iron Throne."

"Yes," said Jon simply. 

Their marriage ought to have been easy; if you believed the Red Priests he was Azor Ahai to her promised prince. But at least they could be honest with each other where they couldn't be kind, so Dany said, "I don't know if I truly believe you to be Rhaegar's son."

Lady Melisandre had seen it in her fires, and Howland Reed had confirmed it; Lady Melisandre had been wrong in the past, and Dany did not know enough of Lord Reed to speak to his honesty.

"Truly," Jon replied, "I don't know if I wish to be Rhaegar's son. It was one thing to be Lord Eddard's bastard by a woman he was too ashamed to speak of... It's another to know that my father raped my mother and provoked the civil war that killed my uncle and both my grandfathers."

"Rhaegar didn't--" Dany wanted to defend the brother that she'd never met, the brother that all men said she was so very like. But those events had happened long ago, and lived on only in fading memories and contradicting stories. "I am sure that my brother loved Lady Lyanna as best he could," she said instead.

"Have you never known men to hurt the women they claim to love, Your Grace?"

Dany had never spoken to Jon of Daario, so he couldn't know how closely this blow landed. "Why are you here, Lord Snow, if you care so little for being Rhaegar's son?"

"So long as I stayed in the north people would wish me to rule Winterfell over my sisters; Winterfell belongs to Sansa and Arya, I will not take it from them. And the Free Folk choose their own leaders, I am thankful that from the Gift they cannot see that I am the least of three monarchs, and I can do more to protect them here than I could as lord commander or the bastard of Winterfell." Jon Snow regarded Dany for a long moment. "Why do you want me here?"

"The north insisted, your Free Folk insisted, the Red Priestess and the Church of R'hllor insisted." Dany sighed. "And the dragon must have three heads, Jon Snow." 

The dragon has three heads, Dany had heard those words for years, and every time she echoed them back they held less and less meaning for her.

*

Dany and Aegon were better suited to one another. At least, in so far as bedsport was concerned.

She bound Aegon's wrists above his head and dripped candle wax onto his chest, watching as he squirmed pleasingly beneath her. Afterwards she lay beside him and traced the angry red marks with her fingernails, causing Aegon to hiss through his teeth. 

The burns were not fading as quickly as Dany would have expected, and unless Aegon had been playacting for her pleasure, the hot wax had pained him more too.

Fire cannot kill a dragon, Dany thought absently. 

It was not that Targaryens could not be harmed by fire. Since taking the Iron Throne Dany had been studying the history of her family; and the twelve-volume chronicle of House Targaryen that the maesters had sent her from the Citadel often read like an ill-advised guide to self-immolation.

Still, Dany rolled away from Aegon and held her palm over the nearest candle flame; watching as her skin neither blackened nor blistered.

Aegon brushed his knuckles against the knots of her spine and said, "Do you think we made a child this night?"

It was not a question borne out of cruelty. Aegon - a child of the east as much as Dany herself was - played the role of Westerosi nobleman well; and it was the question any highborn man of Westeros might ask his bride. But Aegon had not married some blushing maiden, he had married the Mother of Dragons; twice wed, many more times bedded, and likely as barren as the Red Waste. 

She slipped from the bed and into a robe. "Must we discuss this?"

"If you wish for another topic, how does this suit: I should be a king." 

Dany turned to face him, her eyebrows raised. Aegon's sentiment did not surprise her, that he had voiced it so soon did. 

"In title, at least," Aegon conceded. "It is one thing for Snow to only be a lord, he refused all other titles, and we have no real proof that he is my brother in truth. I am your lord husband, I am the only trueborn son of Rhaegar Targaryen. I delivered Dorne to you, and I fought the Lannisters while you were still burning the far north to ashes. You can at least do me the courtesy of making me your king in name, if not in fact!"

"The last man I named king developed ideas above his station, my _lord_ husband," Dany replied dangerously.

"I am not your traitorous Meereenese king," said Aegon.

True, thought Dany, you are no Hizdahr zo Loraq... if you betray me you will at least have the courage to do so to my face.

"You are the Prince of Dragonstone," she told him, "as was your father before you, be content with that."

*

After an overlong small council meeting which had led nowhere, Dany decided that so long as there were no pressing matters to attend to she would take the afternoon to visit her dragons. 

Aegon and Arianne Martell left the council chamber together, their heads bowed in conversation. Though they were said to be cousins Dany could see no family resemblance between them. 

She could see how ridiculous her suspicions were becoming: she doubted Jon's parentage because he looked so much like his northern mother, she doubted Aegon's because he looked nothing at all like Elia of Dorne.

A visit to the dragonpit would clear her mind. Perhaps she might even take Drogon above the city; there was nothing like seeing King's Landing from dragonback to put things into perspective.

Dany summoned an attendant and ordered a whip and her Dothraki riding garb made ready 

*

The dragonpit was open to the sky. After Meereen Dany refused to chain her dragons again, and she often wondered if their confinement in that city was the reason that Rhaegal and Viserion combined were smaller than Drogon.

Well-fed and left unprovoked, Rhaegal and Viserion were not a threat to the people of King's Landing. Drogon had been ridden, and he was a danger only to those the queen wished to see endangered.

Viserion lifted his head at Dany's arrival and hissed at her, black smoke billowing from his nostrils. Drogon snapped at his brother, and the white dragon coiled himself into a corner, glaring at the queen and his black brother through slitted eyes.

Dany was not frightened. Neither Viserion nor Rhaegal would ever harm her, though in recent years that had been more out of fear of Drogon than love of Dany; a realisation that still pained her gravely, but even the mother of dragons could not ride three dragons at once. And the dragons tolerated her presence in a way that they would tolerate none other, and that too was a gift. 

Jon Snow had never been interested in the dragons as anything more than a means to fight the threat from beyond the Wall; in any case, he already had a direwolf which he would chose over a dragon every time. But Aegon had expected Dany to grant him a dragon, and when she had replied that the dragons were not hers to _grant_ , he had insisted that he had he right to try to claim one.

When Aegon had arrived wearing his red and black armour, with his silver hair and violet eyes, Dany had not at first had any cause to doubt that he was who he claimed to be. And with the Dornish army and the Golden Company at his back she had agreed that he was within his rights to attempt to prove himself a dragonrider. 

Standing up in front of Rhaegal, armed with only a whip, Aegon had proven himself fearless; and by listening to Arianne Martell's urgent whispers that it was futile and that he would gain nothing by following Prince Quentyn into the grave he proved himself wise enough to listen to good counsel. But the fact remained that Rhaegal had swatted the self-styled Aegon VI away as though he were nothing more than a mild irritation, and proceeded to ignore him completely. On that day the first seeds of doubt had been planted in Dany's mind.

The queen cracked her whip and brought Drogon to his belly, and the dragon allowed Dany to climb up and seat herself at the base of his neck. Another crack of her whip had Drogon launching them both into the air. As they rose through the shattered roof of the dragonpit Dany thought that when the realm had decided that Aegon Targaryen and Jon Snow were two of the heads of the dragon, they had neglected to ask Rhaegal and Viserion what they thought of this.

*

Not long after she'd taken the Iron Throne, and before the royal wedding, Dany had flown on Drogon to the Reach, to Highgarden, to negotiate House Tyrell's contribution to the royal coffers, and receive their oath of fealty.

"I am just an old woman," said Olenna Tyrell. It was true, the Lady of Highgarden was an old woman who had buried a son and three grandsons, and her only granddaughter was hostage at Winterfell with Jon Snow's sisters.

But Dany recognised that opening gambit. "And I am just a young girl," she countered. 

"Not so very young, I think," said Lady Olenna. "Come, let me look at you. They say you are Aegon the Conqueror come again. Does that make those two boys you plan to wed Rhaenys and Visenya?"

"No, my lady, Rhaenys and Visenya Targaryen had dragons."

*

Returning to the Red Keep from the dragonpit Dany encountered Arianne Martell, Aegon was nowhere in sight. 

"You seem to have lost your admirer, Princess Arianne."

The princess laughed darkly. "Oh, I think I lost him the moment you took the Iron Throne." There was a pause before Arianne added, "Your Grace."

The queen had little sympathy, the Dornish princess's unhappiness was of her own making; it was Dorne which had insisted that Dany wed Aegon, just as strongly as the north had insisted that she marry Jon Snow.

The Dornish ought to have been Dany's first and best allies, but if they could ever have forgiven her for Quentyn Martell's death, they could not forgive her turning north instead of south when she arrived on the shores of Westeros.

"May I walk with you a moment, Your Grace?" Arianne asked.

"Please do," Dany replied. The princess was wearing a gown of fine sandsilk, while Dany was still in her Dothraki leathers, and if the intention was to make the queen feel underdressed it had failed, she felt like the Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea. "I have suggested that Aegon take you as a paramour, you know," she said boldly. 

"I have suggested that too, Your Grace. But Aegon worries about fathering royal bastards. Look at what happened with the Blackfyres."

Viserys had told Dany all about the Blackfyres; a bastard branch of House Targaryen, exiled across the narrow sea, waiting for an opportunity to return... like a babe with a smashed skull, mayhap?

"Yes," she said thoughtfully, "look to the Blackfyres."

It was a pity, though, that Aegon had not bedded Arianne. 

Dany did not care about dynasty the way Viserys had. She had known she was like as not barren before she'd taken the Iron Throne, and there were no she-dragons among her children, her legacy would be her victory at the Wall and her conquest of Westeros. But the queen had come to care for these Seven Kingdoms, and she did not want them to descend into more bloodshed and chaos after her death. The legitimised bastard of Aegon Targaryen and Arianne Martell would have served well enough as an heir, regardless of her doubts about Aegon's origins.

The smallfolk would like it-- Rhaegar and Elia come again, only this time neither Stark sister is much inclined to venture far from Winterfell. 

She needs must discuss the possibility with Aegon and Arianne. Jon Snow too, although Dany could not imagine him fathering a bastard on anyone, even with Dany promising as queen to legitimise the child.

* 

Barristan Selmy was dead, laid out in the Great Sept along with his arms and armour, and the queen grieved bitterly for him.

"I am sorry for your loss, my lady," said Aegon, coming to stand beside her. "He was a fine Queen's Hand, and the finest of knights."

For all the mistrust and mislike that dominated the royal marriage, Jon Snow was dutiful and had a nice smile, and Aegon was capable of moments of great kindness; it might have been easier if things had been otherwise, at least then Dany might have hated them wholeheartedly.

"Thank you, my prince," she said. 

"I remember when Jon Connington died, he had been a father to me as well as a Hand, I did not know how I was to even think of replacing him--"

Dany had no great love for Jon Connington; had he truly felt his failure to Prince Rhaegar so keenly the right thing to do would have been to journey to Braavos and swear his sword to the defence of Rhaegar's young brother and infant sister. She also resented Connington for dying from greyscale before she could question him as to the truth of Aegon's identity.

But Aegon was correct about one thing, at least, the prospect of choosing a new Hand hadn't been one Dany relished. She knew Ser Jorah expected the position, and although she had allowed her bear to rejoin her court after he'd delivered the Imp to her, she could never again trust him as she once had.

"I plan to name Jon Snow Hand of the Queen at the next council meeting," she said. 

"Lord Snow? Why him, why not--" To his credit, Aegon managed to swallow his words before he said _why not me?_

Dany might have mentioned all those times Jon Snow had stayed in the small council chamber with Maester Samwell, frowning over parchments, while Aegon was whispering sweet nothings in Arianne Martell's ear, and Dany herself was already anticipating being aloft on Drogon's back or falling asleep to the sound of Missandei's voice. 

Instead she said, not unkindly, "Because Lord Snow does not want to sit upon the Iron Throne, and you, my prince, want it too much."

*

"My father was Hand to a King," said Jon Snow, wearing his new chain of office, "and it killed him."

Dany did not say that Rhaegar Targaryen had been Jon's father, not Eddard Stark. She did not say that Lord Stark had been one of the Usurper's Dogs, little better than Tywin Lannister. It had been easy to forgive Sansa and Arya Stark, girls even younger than Dany, born well after the rebellion; but if Ned Stark had still been alive when Dany had crossed the Narrow Sea she would have taken his head as surely as she'd taken the Kingslayer's.

Instead she met Jon's gaze, and said flatly, "Oh no. You've uncovered my secret plan." Jon Snow's rare smile made an appearance at that.

*

The queen dined with her husbands in her private solar.

Jon Snow wore black, as always, and his chain of office, Aegon wore his ruby studded armour. Dany was not immune to the game of marital one-upmanship, wearing a gold circlet, which while not as heavy or ornate as her official crown gave off a similar air of queenly authority. They ate in silence apart from the sound of knives striking their plates, and Ghost turned his baleful red-eyed stare on Dany and Aegon by turns. 

Dany thought that marriage vows were not unlike those taken by the Queensguard or the Night's Watch, _if you were unhappy, well, it was only for life._


End file.
